He forced himself to a patience that he was so far from feeling it felt like a mockery. He had it all to do again. He had to coax that stiffness from her body, draw the passion from her. He had to go slowly. His body cried out against the thought but this time he ignored it.
When her lips parted beneath his, he felt a surge of triumph equal only to the surge of desire within him. Her tongue tangled with his. His mouth moved on hers, possessive, demanding. He cupped her face in his hands, driving his fingers into that silky dark gold hair that he had wanted to caress from the very first. She gave a little moan and moved her body accommodatingly beneath
fiis
. Marcus's lust swelled and his erection also swelled commensurately.
He could not wait much longer.
He pulled back to draw off his boots and saw her draw the tattered remains of her bodice close in an oddly innocent gesture. It only served to draw his gaze to the skin that it exposed. He sat down facing her on the edge of the bed, placed his hands about her waist and bent his head to the hollow of her throat. He could feel the heat that spread beneath her skin. His tongue flicked the curve of her neck, tasting her. Immediately her nipples hardened beneath the shreds of her chemise, and with a sound deep in his throat, he brushed the material aside, closing his lips over one of the cool, damp peaks. Isabella's body arched in an instinctive plea but he held her tight, his hands hard on her waist now as his mouth plundered the sweetness of her exposed breasts. Her soft moans and the writhing of her body pushed him perilously close to the edge but he was determined to prolong her pleasure. He was not sure how his selfish desire for satisfaction had transmuted into a determination to please her, but now their mutual need was all embracing.
He swept the material of her gown down, his hands moving over the bare planes of her stomach and hips in subtle caresses until Isabella reached blindly for him. She was shivering, though not with cold. He could sense the ripples of feeling edging along her skin and it roused a deep hunger in him. He kissed her again. Her mouth was warm and eager against his own and as his hands slid down to clasp her hips and pull her against his body, he parted her lips with his tongue and stroked deeper, exploring, curling his tongue with sensuous abandon against hers. He knew that her need was as acute as his own. It was implicit in the urgency of her hands on his body and the soft, broken-off gasps of her pleasure.
He parted her thighs with infinite
gentieness
. He sensed her instinctive hesitation, then his fingers were stroking gently as he felt the wet warmth of her. He touched his lips to the smooth skin of her stomach, edging lower, tracing the curve of her thigh with the tip of his tongue. Very slowly, with infinite gentleness, his lips brushed the curly triangle of hair between her legs. He heard her gasp, and then he was kissing her there, holding her hips down as he touched his tongue again and again with aching tenderness to her quivering core.
Isabella cried out. Her body tensed, her back arched and Marcus raised himself above her, easing himself between her legs, his rigid shaft poised at her entrance. He could not hold back any longer. He slid within her, feeling the heat and the incredible tightness close about him.
All thoughts of revenge and bitterness and anger had been burned up by his white-hot desire for her. Even so, he was unprepared for that first shattering crash of feeling as he thrust inside her and the shock and memory of it wiped out all thought. They were young again and the wooden floor of the summerhouse
was hard beneath them and the summer moon poured down its blessing on them. Her skin was smooth and silver pale beneath his caressing hands as they fused, mind, body and spirit, close, closer still. . . Her fingernails scored his shoulders, mixing pain and pleasure. He drove into her, the hard hot thrust of his body searing brighter with every driving stroke. His body was racked with blissful pleasure, so sudden and so irresistible that he cried out in both surprise and ecstasy.
I love you. . .
Was that then, or was it now? He no longer knew. Nor did he care. He had wanted to think her avaricious and amoral but now he realized that he had been fighting himself at every step in an effort to make her fit that image.
It had never worked.
He knew she was finer than that and that she always had been. His hatred was vanquished and relief flowed in its place. His bitterness burned out.
He drew Isabella close to his spent body in love and profound gratitude, and fell asleep.
I
t was the swish
of the curtains that woke him. Marcus stirred. He could not remember ever sleeping so long or so well. It felt as though all his demons had finally been laid to rest. The light hovered behind his closed eyelids. He did not want to open his eyes or confront the day. He wanted to tell Isabella that he regretted the things that he had said and the suspicions he had harbored of her, He wanted to tell her that he understood how painful it must have been for her to have to make that impossible choice between her family and his love.
He reached out instinctively.
The space beside him was empty.
"Hot water, my lord."
Marcus opened his eyes. Belton was standing at the foot of his bed, an ewer in his hand and a towel over his arm. His expression was politely blank.
Marcus shot up in bed. "Isabella. . .where is she?"
Belton's eyebrows twitched infinitesimally. "Her ladyship has gone, my lord."
"Gone?"
Marcus looked around desperately, as though he were expecting—hoping, he realized—to see Isabella hiding behind the bed hangings.
"Gone away, my lord," Belton said lugubriously. "Her ladyship was insistent that we should not wake you."
Hell and damnation. Lost in his own bliss, Marcus thought that he had taken Isabella with him. He had wanted her to feel the same deep pleasure that had possessed him but perhaps. . .perhaps in his selfish enjoyment he had totally failed to notice her lack of response. . .or perhaps he had taken her body but her spirit had once again eluded him. He felt sick and cold and suddenly afraid.
Belton had turned away and was pouring the water into the bowl on the sideboard. Through the buzz in his ears, Marcus heard the splash of the water and saw Belton mop up a spilled drop with absolute precision. He leaped from the bed and grabbed the butler's arm.
"Where has Princess Isabella gone?"
Belton turned slowly. His expression was still impassive.
"Her ladyship has left Town, my lord."
Marcus shook his arm. "When? When did she go?"
"At daybreak, my lord." The butter anticipated Marcus's next question before it was half-formed in his mind. "It is now ten o'clock, my lord."
Ten o'clock. The numbers swam through Marcus's head like fish. Daybreak was half-past four in the summer, five at the latest. Five hours' start. Isabella could be anywhere by now, running away from him, putting as much distance between them as she could.
Belton was standing upright like a soldier on duty. Marcus looked down, realized that he was stark naked, and released the butter's arm.
"Thank you, Belton," he said.
"A pleasure, my lord," the butler said. He paused. "There is a note, my lord."
A note.
Ridiculous hope surged through Marcus's heart.
"Where?"
Belton pointed to the little table beside the bed. Marcus picked it up and unfolded it. He noticed dispassionately that his hands were shaking.
Stockhaven,
I have gone to Salterton. You have had your wed-ding night. Now I trust you to give me my freedom.
I.S.
That was all. Marcus turned the paper over to make sure. The distance between them, physical and emotional, squeezed his heart. He had fallen asleep feeling closer to her than he had ever done in his life. She had merely been waiting for the dawn so that she could leave him.
He thought now of the relentless barrage of accusations that he had thrown at her and the way he had tried to conquer her spirit. The downright cruelty of it made him shudder. He put his head in his hands.
"Do you require a shave, my lord?" Belton asked, above his head.
"No, thank you," Marcus said automatically.
"Clothes, my lord?" The butler's voice held the tiniest shade of disapproval now.
"Thank you," Marcus said automatically.
"A horse, my lord?" Now the butler's voice held a definite message. Marcus looked up.
"A horse?"
Belton almost glared. "A
horse,
my lord."
A light leaped into Marcus's eyes at the same moment that hope surged in his heart. Why not? He had to try.
"Yes, I will have a horse made ready to travel, please, Belton," he said. "A fast one."
Belton's lips twitched into the faintest of satisfied smiles. Marcus recognized this as a sign of approval. "At once, my lord," the butler said.
Part
2
—
Seduction
Salterton, July 1816
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The debt was paid
and if Marcus kept his word, she was free.
If Isabella Stockhaven had been the type of woman to confide in a bosom-bow, which she emphatically was not, she might have vouchsafed the fact that her experience of love at the hands of her husband the previous night had been outstanding. It was true that she did not have a great deal of experience with which to compare Marcus's lovemaking. Sleeping with Ernest had been like being squashed by a wardrobe that still had the key in the door. But Marcus . . . Well, anyone who could make her tingle and quiver and melt with such absolute pleasure and longing had to be a master of the art. It had been a perfect wedding night in all respects but one.
Her husband did not love her.
Isabella was running away as fast as she could. It was not Marcus that she was running from. She was trying to outrun her own emotions. Yet she knew that no matter how she denied it, she carried those feelings with her every step of the way. There was no escape.
She was in love with Marcus Stockhaven.
She had never stopped loving him.
She had told Marcus almost the entire truth the previous night, leaving out only the closest and most painful secret, her doubts over Emma's parentage. She had hesitated over this, too, wanting a clean sheet, but in the end she had not spoken because what good would it do? Emma was dead now and the anguish put behind her. Isabella never wanted to face the devastation of losing a child ever again. She did not want to love and she did not dare to pray for children. Once again she locked the thoughts and the feelings away.
Even without exposing that deepest of secrets, though, the disclosures had been exhausting and costly. She had opened her heart to Marcus and it had hurt when he had rejected her explanations. Today she was tired and her feelings were rubbed raw. The journey gave her plenty of time to think. To think about the matters that she had talked about with Marcus and to think about her seduction.
For she had been seduced, swept up in a maelstrom of sensation that had left no room for rational thought, as much by her own desires as by Marcus's. Her need for him had been as strong as his for her. She faced the thought squarely. She had wanted him. She wanted him still.
Marcus's rough anxiety as he made love to her had lit something in her, a longing that was irresistible. A part of her had never wanted to resist him anyway. Isabella trembled with the memory. It was so long since she had felt like that. She had almost forgotten. She had
wanted
to forget. It was a lifetime; she had been a different person then.
To be held in Marcus's arms, to kiss him, touch him, hold him to her, was like coming home. She had been swamped by the profundity of her love for him. She had felt him inside her and her body had leaped in response but even as he'd taken her with him down that swirling, painful, blissful spiral of passion, her heart had been torn with a mixture of love and fear, for this was what she wanted but it still felt all wrong and until Marcus loved her again it could never be right.
Afterward he had held her close and had fallen asleep at once. In the faint light he had looked young and his face was rubbed clean of all anger and bitterness and hatred. Her stomach had lurched with a combination of love and misery as she had looked on him and she had entwined herself in his arms, trying to block out the painful thoughts that battered her tired mind.
It had not worked.
They had achieved physical intimacy but she felt further from Marcus than ever. He did not love her. She had told him the truth in the hope that it would ease the mistrust between them. Instead she was left with an emptier feeling than before. It was as though she had gambled all on a single throw of the dice and it had not turned up the result that she desired. There was honesty between them, there was a physical closeness now that both tormented and pleasured her, but it had brought no love with it. It had never occurred to her in all the tangle of her feelings for Marcus that she had a rival for his love. Now she wondered how she could have been so blind.
What about India?
Marcus had said, and for a second she had wondered at the irrelevance of his question. That was before she had seen the anger and the loyalty and the passion in his eyes and had felt her heart sink through her velvet slippers. India. Of course. India was the one that Marcus had married. India had held his love and his loyalty then and she still had it now. Isabella knew that Marcus might want her, with that desperate, aching need that she felt, too, but that was a vastly different matter from the feelings he had had for his first wife.
It hurt to think of Marcus loving India. It had hurt her the previous night and it hurt now. It had been a shock when he had sprung it on her. Now it was a dull ache inside. She felt so foolish not to have thought of it. Her pride was humbled that she had believed his passion had only ever been for her.
Sleep had been impossible. As soon as it was light she had called for the carriage and taken the road south through the sleeping city. She had packed in haste and had left orders for the servants to follow her to Salterton with due speed. Then she had taken a last look at Marcus's sleeping form and had walked away.
Beyond Richmond, the countryside unrolled into a patchwork of fields, hedges, woods and villages on every side. The road was good. It was another glorious sunny day. Isabella tried to doze but it was no use; her thoughts spun like a top.
The carriage rumbled over cobbles and came to rest in an inn yard, rousing her from her torpor. Another stop. Change the horses, gulp down scalding coffee. . .
"Where are we?" Isabella asked.
"The Golden Farmer Inn at
Bagshot
, my lady."
Late in the afternoon they passed the junction where the road to Exeter turned west and they took the southern route to Winchester. Isabella had a very specific place in mind to stay the night. The town's hostelries and hotels were not for her, but on the outskirts, under the ancient walls, was an even more ancient inn called the Ostrich. It had once been a hospice run by the monks and although it had passed into secular hands after the dissolution of the monasteries, it had been bought by a private religious order some fifty years before. The monks of St. Jerome brewed their own mead, made their own medicine and offered hospitality to travelers. The
Standishes
had stayed there many times when traveling to Salterton. Lady Standish had considered a monastic establishment to have the appropriate
ton
for one of her genteel standing. Now Isabella was choosing it for a different reason, for what could be more suitable for a lady journeying alone? One would always find safe haven in a monastery.
The town was busy, for it was the week of the old summer horse fair and market, and St. Jerome's was almost full of visitors. One of the brothers greeted her with a refreshingly cool tankard of mead—the road had been dusty and the weather increasingly hot as the day progressed. Isabella had a strong thirst and as few inhibitions about ladies drinking alcoholic beverages as she had of them traveling alone. Her single portmanteau, thrown together in such a hurry, was taken to a room on the first floor that overlooked the orchard. There was an ewer of cool water for washing and crisp linen on the narrow bed. Having made certain that her coachman and groom had suitable accommodation, Isabella retired to her room, lay down and closed her eyes. After a little while, the scent of roasting meat began to creep into the room and she opened her eyes, realizing that she felt sharp set. A little while after that, there was a knock at the door and an inn servant appeared bearing a tray groaning under the weight of food. Isabella began to remember what a gem of a place The Ostrich was.
In the evening she read by the light of a candle while the hum of the busy streets echoed around her and eventually, despite the noise and the light night, she fell asleep over her book.
It was dark when she awoke and she knew instantly that something had disturbed her. Someone was turning the doorknob very gently. It made a tiny click and then a sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the door. Isabella tensed.
The door opened wider and Isabella groped silently over the side of the bed to find the chamber pot. Her fingers closed over its cold porcelain edge and she clung on for dear life. She had traveled widely and knew what to do in situations like this. It was a question of strike first and ask questions later. She could scream, of course, but strangely she found that she had inhibitions about doing that in a monastery.
A dark figure slipped through the doorway, closing the door gently behind him. He approached the bed softly. Isabella swung the chamber pot around in an arc, rolling over and bringing her arm round so that the pot made contact against the side of the intruder's head with a reverberating crack. He groaned and staggered sideways.
"And let that be a lesson to you not to go creeping into ladies' bedrooms in the night!" Isabella snapped.
"The message is duly received and understood," the man said wryly, rubbing his head. "I swear never to do it again— at least not without your permission."
Isabella sat bolt upright, her heart thumping not from surprise now but from fear.
"Marcus?
What on earth are you doing here?"
She grasped the tinderbox and struck a light. The candle flared. Isabella's hand shook slightly. This was most unexpected and disturbing. She had thought that she would have plenty of time before she was obliged to see Marcus again—if she were to see him at all. A legal separation could have been achieved working through Mr. Churchward. So could the formal deed of gift giving her Salterton. There would have been no need for them to meet one another ever again.
Marcus sat down heavily on the end of the narrow bed. "Not a particularly warm welcome," he said ruefully.
"What are you doing here?" Isabella demanded. "How did you know where to find me? I told no one where I was staying, so that you. . ."
A smile curled Marcus's lips. It made her feel prickly with sensual heat. It conjured the memories of the previous night. His hands against her skin, his lips at her breast, the friction of his body against hers. . . Isabella fidgeted and looked away.
"You told no one so that I would not know where to find you?" Marcus queried.
"Precisely," Isabella said.
Marcus laughed. "I followed you along the road," he said. "You are not exactly inconspicuous, Isabella."
"Why bother to follow me at all?" Isabella argued. Her nervousness was intensifying now. "There was no need. You had your wedding night. Now it is your turn to keep your word."
Marcus was silent for a moment. His face was dark and expressionless in the candlelight.
"I could not let you go like that," he said at length.
Isabella's heart thumped. "What do you mean?"
Marcus shifted. He looked uncomfortable. "I had to talk to you." A shadow touched his face. "Isabella, I am sorry. I wanted you last night and I thought that you wanted me, too. It was never my intention to force myself on you." He paused, then added with scrupulous honesty, "At least . . .at the start, perhaps I did not care. But I would never take you against your will." He shifted uncomfortably. "I am sorry that I drove you away."
He had misunderstood her reasons for running away, Isabella realized. She had been intent on putting the distance between them because she could not have borne to awaken in the morning and hear the stark words that he was leaving her. But he had assumed that she had run away because she had been repelled by their lovemaking. He was looking unbearably contrite and, to her surprise, she felt the hot color flood her face. She felt tongue-tied. "Let us not speak of it."
"Why not? We are husband and wife."
Isabella's throat dried. Never in her life had she discussed intimate matters with anyone, least of all her husband. She examined her feelings and realized that she was embarrassed.
Marcus put a hand under her chin and turned it to the light.
"You are shy," he said, a note of surprise in his voice.
Isabella slapped his hand away. "No, I am not!"
"Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes."
Isabella looked at him fleetingly and then away. "I am not accustomed to speaking on such subjects," she said with a little difficulty.
She expected Marcus to make some mocking remark, but he was silent, rubbing his head absentmindedly where she had hit him. She put out a tentative hand.
"Did I hurt you?"